If you have a loved one with cancer or if you are having a love affair with cancer join me here. This is an uplifting, alluring and realistic saga of Love in the Time of cancer. I am also writing this because as Mark Twain said, “I don’t want to hear about the moon from a man who has not been there.” Loving a man with cancer is my moon. Take the next step with me.

Friday, December 26, 2014

Money--perhaps the most taboo subject culturally. Yes, we only talk to some friends about our sex life, and maybe with very close friends, we talk about our faith life or our prayer life--that is such intimacy, isn't it? But the thing we share the least? Our financial lives.

Just think about that. Think of three of your really close friends. You may know who is having sex and who isn't anymore, and occasionally who likes what. But do you know how much money your friends make? or their partners make? or how deep their debt is? Who has family help? You might guess at those things but rarely do we know financial details of our friend's lives.

This is also true in CancerLand. And that can be devastating. The cost of cancer care is steep. Even with insurance the copays can break a family. And when cancer goes on and on--as it does more and more often now--the cost can use all resources including savings and retirement funds.

This is something worth thinking about--and talking about. But you'll see in the attached article that many folks worry about talking about money with their doctors because they fear changes to the quality of their care.

Click on the link below to read more. Share this post with friends who have cancer or who care for those who do. Let's open this last box of secrets in CancerLand. Let's reduce the fear and anxiety around money that is an additional cost and worry.

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Years ago it was cancer at
Christmas. The first surgery. The news about chemo. Having hope at the
holidays. I found this blog post from Christmas Past tonight and I’m sharing it
here. It’s good to remember that we were able to be so be happy even then, even
in the thick of it, and that we found serenity and sensuality even in those
first few steps into CancerLand.

Here is the old post:

“It’s all here. Love and
carols, candlelight service at the United Methodist Church last night, sleeping
late and making love through the morning, a sponge bath then washing his hair
over the side of the tub—he cannot get the stitches wet for three more days—a
walk in the neighborhood, opening gifts—books and music, and tickets and
clothes for both of us. These are the things we have shared and talked about
from the first day we met. Cashmere and satin and a collection of erotic poetry
keep the love alive. We cook dinner together: Cornish game hens with smooth
small breasts, artichokes to slide through our teeth, potatoes soaked with
butter and garlic and chocolate mousse. Christmas together. We never thought
we’d see this. But here it is. We have both cancer and Christmas and it is
enough.”

This year’s Christmas Eve is a
little different: Adopt-a-Family gifts, cooking, wrapping, (cursing the tape
dispenser), texting the kids, cajoling the siblings, turning off the phone for
private sensual solitude. Both of us laughing; we are this grateful.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

We have used this metaphoric language for so long that we
may forget to ask if it is helpful. Often the war and battle language is used
to motivate patients. And even in obituaries we read about winning and losing the
war/battle/fight/with cancer.

But according to a research report by David Hauser at the
University of Michigan, it turns out that, “Exposure to metaphoric language
relating cancer to en enemy significantly lessens the extent to which people
consider cancer-prevention and health promotion behaviors.”

This is so interesting. The power of language and the reality
of unintended consequences.

What Hauser determined is that hearing the “metaphoric
utterances” (he’s an academic) changes the way we think of the disease. “When
we hear the phrase “Win the war on cancer,” it forces us to think of cancer as
an enemy that we are at war with.” Well, yeah.

But his crucial point is this: War and battle language emphasizes
taking aggressive action against cancer. But, most cancer-prevention behaviors,
such as changing diet, curbing alcohol intake, limiting salt and not smoking
involve “limitation and restraint.” Not fighting. Hence, according to Hauser,
enemy metaphors de-emphasize those kinds of beneficial preventative behaviors
and actually hurt people’s willingness to engage in them.

Kind of like, “If I had to I would kick cancer’s butt, but I’m
not going to just use less salt.”

Here’s Hauser: “Constant exposure to even minor metaphorical
utterances may be enough to make enemy metaphors for cancer a powerful
influence on public health, with unfortunate side effects.”

Wow—there is the power of words, and the danger of
words-even words used with positive intentions.

Monday, December 8, 2014

I have been a caregiver for
more than 30 years, and for the past ten years I have been coaching family
caregivers. A couple of years ago I created a class called “Caregiving 101” to
reach family caregivers in community centers, faith communities, and in workplaces.

What I’ve learned is that one
of the biggest supports for a caregiver is hearing about how other people cope
in their caregiving. We can learn from the good and the bad, from the “Do” and
the “Don’t”, examples of how other people approached, struggled and survived
their caregiving role.

In caregiving classes and
support groups we hear poignant stories directly from current caregivers. But
there is another way to share in these caregiving stories and that is from
reading literature.

In the midst of my own
caregiving I found myself leaning into the experiences of poets, novelists and
those who write literary nonfiction, (essays and memoir as opposed to self-help
books). Today my caregiving bookshelves have an equal number of advice books
and works of literature—all guides to me on the practices, methods, strategies,
and emotions of caregiving.

A few years ago I began
teaching a class—for caregivers and for writers—called “The Literature of
Caregiving.” Today, here at “Love in the Time of Cancer,” I am starting a new
series on the literature of caregiving. Once a month, or maybe more often, I’ll
introduce a novel, story or poem that offers a perspective on caregiving.

I hope you’ll enjoy these
voices and that they will be helpful to you.

In caregiving literature we
are often talking about pain, suffering, grief, or family dynamics, which we
all know, complicate the day-to-day stress of caregiving.Some works of literature in the caregiving
genre can also be classified also as works of “narrative theology”—where there are underlying questions of meaning,
“What does all this mean in a bigger
sense?” and “What wisdom do these stories offer about how I should live my
life?”

I’ve chosen Marilynne
Robinson--one of America’s great modern authors to lead this new series. Her
books land on the best-seller list with each publishing, and they have the
wonderful dual quality of holding their own as great page-turning fiction as
well as having deep, deeper and deepest layers should you want that kind of
read as well.

Maybe you recall some of her books,
which were published in this order:

“Housekeeping”—which was also
a wonderful movie, then “Gilead”—which won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize, then “Home”
in 2008 and most recently, “Lila”. All of Robinson’s stories are set in
Iowa—where Robinson lives. And each of her books centers on the joys, sorrows
and struggles of one or more family caregivers.

In “Home” (2008) Robinson
gives us Glory Boughton, age 38, who has returned to Iowa to care for her dying
father. Glory has her own struggles that her father isn’t aware of. Glory’s brother
Jack—gone 20 years—arrives home as well but not to help out but rather because,
as we slowly learn, Jack needs a lot of tender care as well. Critics have
called Jack Boughton one of the “greatest characters in recent American
literature.”

Robinson’s writing and story
telling is extraordinary. She uses a kind of page-turning prose that can seem
so simple until you realize pages later that she has delivered complicated
relationships and even more complicated emotions to us so gracefully.

Glory and Jack’s father is a
retired minister so there is a family language of faith that both Jack and
Glory wrestle with as they wrestle with each other. While the theology belongs
to their pastor father, Glory is being tested in every way: emotionally,
financially, physically and theologically.

Robinson’s other books all
have caregivers as lead characters: an eccentric aunt in “Housekeeping”, a husband and wife
in “Gilead” and a surprising friend in 2014's “Lila”.

While these stories are
serious and important Robinson’s skill is also in making them enticing
page-turners, so even the most tired caregiver will enjoy keeping Robinson on
the bedside table, or in the bag that goes to and from appointments.

I’ll return in a few weeks
with another entry into our new canon: The Literature of Caregiving. I’d love
to have your feedback and your suggestions too. This can be our virtual book group
or we’ll be caregiving friends sharing a great read.